Queen Victoria's Jubilee

1897
Silent

Unusually detailed shots of the Jubilee procession

While other film companies might have favoured camera positions allowing them to gain up close and personal images of the procession, this big wide frame was filmed on a special large-format camera, capturing both the sheer extent of the pomp and circumstance as well as vivid detail. There were three such cameras positioned along the route, but only this sequence of film survives. Perched on the steps of Apsley House, cameraman John Le Couteur captured a fantastic view of the procession as it turns from Constitution Hill towards Piccadilly.

ACTUALITY. Two separate films joined together. Part 1, military parade from Apsley House by John le Couteur for Gaumont. Part 2, military parade and long shot of Queen Victoria. (The procession of the jubilee entering St. Paul's cathedral churchyard filmed by R.W Paul himself from the south side of the yard.)

Robert Paul: Giant of Early Film

The most prolific filmmaker of the pioneer period of British film

The multi-talented Robert Paul (1869-1943) was the first British filmmaker to project film for a paying audience, in 1896. A contemporary of the Lumiere brothers, Paul had been producing film, in partnership with Birt Acres, for his own brand of Kinetoscope viewer since April 1895. Shortly after, he began producing for his Theatrograph and Animatographe machines, enjoying a long run at the Alhambra in Leicester Square. As an engineer, Paul made a number of significant innovations - such as an intermittent mechanism for efficiently projecting film. But he also made key innovations in film language, such as the first two-shot fiction film, Come Along Do! (1898). To cap it all, he was a shrewd businessman, with an instinctive grasp of audience tastes.